Discoveries in Literary Companionship

As I rode home from work on the Harlem Line a few nights ago, I finished a book I loved like I haven’t loved a book in years - A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast by Danish writer Dorthe Nors. I turned the last page somewhere between 125th Street in Manhattan and Melrose station in The Bronx.

I turned back to the first page and began reading Nors’ first essay again.  

I haven’t been to Denmark yet, so I haven't experienced her coast firsthand, but I feel as if I was her companion riding, walking, and hiking in this dramatic landscape, seeing the history she wrote about.

This book transported me.

If not for 2020’s pandemic lockdown, I wouldn’t know who Dorthe Nors is. My office, like all other workplaces, was closed for the long haul. Working at home gave me plenty of blessed writing time, but I missed contact with the outside world. I turned to online writing workshops. A Public Space offered one called “Finding Your Literary Companions.” If that’s not the correct title, it’s close enough. I thought I could do with a companion, so I registered. I wasn’t familiar with the instructor, Dorthe Nors.

Two wonderful hours on Zoom and she let me know I never need to be alone as a writer. Find those one or two writers, she said, who will be my ever-faithful literary companions, whose works I can dive into for inspiration and sustenance. Hold them close, she said. 

I took her advice to heart and found two authors, three of their books, in my library that now stay on my desk beside me. In my darkest ours, in my emptiest writing sessions, they’re with me.

I will keep this book close, too. I may have just found a new literary companion in Dorthe Nors.